Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Crockford

paulstraw.svbtle.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 117 posts

Re: Crockford

#81

Post by erichocean »

mrcsparker wrote: post #59
rhapsodic wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But creating a community that is comfortable for everyone is an inherently valuable goal. Well, I can never be comfortable in a community where I might have my reputation and/or career destroyed over a reference to testicles that some might deem inappropriate. The people doing this are vicious and hateful, and they need to be given a taste of their own medicine.

Maybe the idea of communities in tech should just go away. People who share similar ideas on tech should just get together to share those ideas without having to setup a bunch of arbitrary rules and gatekeepers. Some brilliant people might also have offensive ideas. Why not have a system that allows that brilliance to shine through? The larger problem here is that these are not communities of hobbyists. Saying someth…

> Some brilliant people might also have offensive ideas.

Yup. And some brilliant ideas are offensive.

Re: Crockford

#82

Post by sheepmullet »

istjohn wrote: post #29

It disappoints me to see how many folks on Hacker News have responded to this incident by condemning the entire concept of standards of conduct and the idea that the developer community should take the goal of inclusivity and sensitivity seriously. There is no question that our community too often can feel hostile to those who aren't white hetero men, and that is a real problem. On the other hand, there is no questio…

> It disappoints me to see how many folks on Hacker News have responded to this incident by condemning the entire concept of standards of conduct

Because they are consistently abused by manipulative sociopaths.

> While no doubt well-intentioned, Nodevember has hurt the cause.

It isn't well-intentioned at all.

In every large group/community there are those who will try and take advantage of others. You need checks and balances if you want to limit abuse.

In this case there clearly are no checks and balances.

As a brown man it isn't the "white hetro men" who are making me afraid to attend conferences.....

A "white hetro man" might make a comment or tell a joke that makes me feel a little uncomfortable. A power mad "SJW" will publicly shame me and hurt my career.

Re: Crockford

#83

Post by rocky1138 »

tomohawk wrote: post #3

It seems pretty clear that this is more about a clique that is attacking Mr Crockford in order to obtain more power for themselves. They can now say - "Hey - you have to listen to us! We Matter! Look at what we forced the Nodevember people to do. We're a moral authority!". To go from complaining about a lack of diversity, to basically saying 'you screwed up and now need to prove your love to us by uninviting this JS…

Is there a list of Twitter people who belong to this SJ group? I've blocked them piecemeal, but it would be great to not have to swat at mosquitoes.

Re: Crockford

#84

Post by closed »

stephenr wrote: post #60
closed wrote: post #40

It seems like those calling for removing speakers are often trying to set identity contingencies. That is, a rule like, "if you are Douglas Crockford, then you can't speak at a conference". However, like identity contingencies against people based on gender, race, etc.. this kind of rule is disappointing because it assumes there is something inherently limited or bad about being Douglas Crockford. What seems better t…

That concept won't work for these people. Making rules like "don't be sexist" means that to prevent someone coming, you have to show that the person was in fact being sexist. The homepage for Nodevember has a big "code of conduct" section. No idea if it's new or not, but one bit is: > Do not insult or put down other attendees. Insult is taken, not given. You can't decide what insults me, the same as I can't decide wh…

> Insult is taken, not given. You can't decide what insults me, the same as I can't decide what insults you. By that token, anyone can claim that anything anyone says is insulting to them.

Agreed, and because the conference organizers wield the power to decide who speaks (or to implement deciding in some fashion), they can choose how the insult they're referring to is measured and responded to. For example, it could be by committee, etc..

I'm disappointed if, regardless of their belief on what constitutes insulting behavior, they didn't put forth at least some effort to see if Crockford could meet their standards.

> Does that mean I have the ability to say "NPM's dependency management is so poor quality it's insulting" and have any talk about NPM banned?

You can say that, and organize a conference that bans talk about NPM. As long as your were upfront about it, I'd be fine with it--just sounds like the trappings of a bad conference. If you invited a speaker, only to realize that they were planning to talk about NPM (say you hadn't made your contingency clear), then hopefully you would check if they would drop talk about NPM. If you found out that someone had talked about NPM at a previous conference, and so removed them from your conference without doing the above, I would be disappointed in you, too ;).

> Making rules like "don't be sexist" means that to prevent someone coming, you have to show that the person was in fact being sexist.

I'm not sure if you're saying that, to you, nothing in his behavior appears sexist. I was trying to think of the issue of what to do after / assuming they believed he had acted inappropriately in the past.

Re: Crockford

#85

Post by BinaryIdiot »

sebringj wrote: post #35
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's another conference scam anyway. They're charging $350 for tickets with unconfirmed speakers and they have an open call for speakers. Considering the main value is out of the speakers selling before having much of anything confirmed or even finished just screams like yet another conference trying to cash in (they're even taking sponsors, too). I don't mind conferences where you have to pay mind you but I've only…

I never got the point of those anyways as youtube is sufficient.

I mean sometimes they're good if you can interact with the speakers, ask questions and maybe even network / talk with the other folks interested in the same topics as you. But yeah in general I would imagine YouTube would be better with this.

Now if it's a free conference? Then I'm all for it almost always for it. YCombinator Start-up school comes to mind; I enjoyed it a lot the last time and I'm going to the upcoming one :)

Re: Crockford

#86

Post by sebringj »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #85
sebringj wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never got the point of those anyways as youtube is sufficient.

I mean sometimes they're good if you can interact with the speakers, ask questions and maybe even network / talk with the other folks interested in the same topics as you. But yeah in general I would imagine YouTube would be better with this. Now if it's a free conference? Then I'm all for it almost always for it. YCombinator Start-up school comes to mind; I enjoyed it a lot the last time and I'm going to the upcomin…

That's a good point. I think because I have 3 young sons and am so busy outside of that type of stuff I have a different take on my personal time in terms of spending more if it with geeks than I have to. :)

Re: Crockford

#88

Post by sjwright »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #20
danso wrote: post #5

I'm trying to imagine an alternative timeline in which Nodevember, after having announced Crockford as a speaker and then receiving pushback on Twitter, privately discusses things with Crockford and mutually agree that they should part ways, but come up with a plausible explanation that would minimize the loss of face for both parties. (for the sake of argument, let's say we agree that conferences have the unilateral…

"it seriously fucked up for not vetting Mr. Crockford before inviting him" What exactly does Mr. Crockford need to be "vetted" for, with whom, and how exactly did those people gain the authority to decide who gets to speak and who doesn't?

> What exactly does Mr. Crockford need to be "vetted" for,

For the ability to appease randoms on Twitter.

> with whom

With @nodebotanist and @nexxylove apparently.

> how exactly did those people gain the authority to decide who gets to speak and who doesn't?

Great question.

Re: Crockford

#89

Post by sjwright »

skafjvhs wrote: post #61
closed wrote: post #40

It seems like those calling for removing speakers are often trying to set identity contingencies. That is, a rule like, "if you are Douglas Crockford, then you can't speak at a conference". However, like identity contingencies against people based on gender, race, etc.. this kind of rule is disappointing because it assumes there is something inherently limited or bad about being Douglas Crockford. What seems better t…

You're asking these activists to practice mercy. That's a big ask for someone who is learning what power feels like.

Quote of the day.

Re: Crockford

#90

Post by munificent »

stephenr wrote: post #67
istjohn wrote: post #29

It disappoints me to see how many folks on Hacker News have responded to this incident by condemning the entire concept of standards of conduct and the idea that the developer community should take the goal of inclusivity and sensitivity seriously. There is no question that our community too often can feel hostile to those who aren't white hetero men, and that is a real problem. On the other hand, there is no questio…

> It disappoints me to see how many folks on Hacker News have responded to this incident by condemning the entire concept of standards of conduct and the idea that the developer community should take the goal of inclusivity and sensitivity seriously. Who. Who has responded that way? Have you read the article? There is: - no official message on exactly why he was shit-canned. - references in his previous talks to: - "…

> I know some people don't like eating eggs, but its hardly reason to complain about a presenter at a conference.

In case you don't know, heuvos is Spanish (or just Mexican?) slang for testicles.

Post reply on HN